Re: [PATCH] module: remove MODULE_VERSION()

[Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 01:27:26PM +0100, Nam Cao wrote:
> Petr Pavlu <petr.pavlu@suse.com> writes:
> > On 3/13/26 3:20 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> >> Module "versions" do not make sense as the kernel is built all at once,
> >> the "version" is the overall kernel version number, so modules can not
> >> really be described as having a unique version given that they rely on
> >> the infrastructure of the whole kernel.
> >> 
> >> For now, just make this an "empty" define, to keep existing code
> >> building properly as the tree is slowly purged of the use of this over
> >> time.
> >> 
> >> This macro will be removed entirely in the future when there are no
> >> in-tree users.
> ...
> > The original patch "Add a MODULE_VERSION macro" [1] from 2004 doesn't
> > say much about the motivation for adding module versions, but it does
> > mention that they should be accessible via sysfs. That was implemented
> > a year later in commit c988d2b28454 ("[PATCH] modules: add version and
> > srcversion to sysfs") [2], which primarily discusses use cases related
> > to DKMS, and to administrators + tech support needing to know what is
> > actually loaded on the system. For the latter, I believe srcversion (or
> > something similar) should be sufficient.
> 
> I develop an external module. And our userspace program does rely on
> this to get the module's version on the user's system. This patch would
> break our program.

Why not get the module merged upstream so you don't have this problem
anymore?

> I can change to use a different mechanism. But surely I am not the only
> one who write something that rely on this.

I recommend changing it, as this is not needed in the tree :)

I've been at a conference all week, will respin this patch series next
week and resend, sorry for the delay.

thanks,

greg k-h